It seems like forever since we last saw a decent spell of rain. During August we had 28.6mm of rain, September we had 29.3mm and the forecast for the first 2 weeks of October isn't showing anything of any significance.

 

The rugby term has started with pitches baked hard and grass that has turned straw brown and brittle, far from ideal for contact sport.

 

We have just finished end-of-season renovation on our 9 cricket squares and 2 grass practice nets. We hired in a heavy duty tractor mounted aerator to try and penetrate the rock solid cricket surfaces that we were unable to irrigate only to find that the tines were just bouncing over the surface in places and only penetrating 13mm or so in others. We even managed to snap a couple of tines which has never happened to me before in almost 30 years as a groundsman. So we just had to make do as it is and apply the seed and top dressing. We are irrigating where we can but on 4 cricket squares we can only hope we get enough moisture from dew or fog if it doesn't rain soon to enable the seed to chit. Once the rains start, and I'm sure it will sooner or later although it appears it's always the latter, we will start intensive aerating both on the cricket squares and the winter pitches and outfields to encourage the moisture deep into the soil to encourage the grass roots to follow.

 

The only plus side to this drought during the current recession is that costs have been cut dramatically as we have barely mown a blade of grass during the whole of September, so we have saved considerably in petrol for mowers and diesel for tractors and also mowing machinery breakdown and running costs. The biggest negative has got to be the sorry state that some of our fields are looking and as we are on poor sandy heathland soil there is not a lot we can do about it until mother nature starts turning on the taps. Just a steady trickle to start with please ma'am!